This chapter investigates the English word nice as a cultural keyword, around which sociality discourses revolve. Focusing on its semantic scope in Australian discourse, the keyword nice has an important story to tell about socially accepted and approved ways of thinking, communicating and behaving. Oftentimes nice has been trivialised, or even ridiculed as an “empty word”, but closer scrutiny reveals that nice has all the characteristics of a cultural keyword. It is frequent and foundational in Australian discourse, and it reflects cultural logics, values and orientations. Also, as is common with cultural keywords, nice lacks translational equivalents, even in closely related languages. A comparison with French gentil demonstrates how nice is distinctive in the way it organises and maintains specific discursive orders.
This chapter studies the word bogan as a cultural keyword of contemporary Australian public discourse. The word bogan is specific to Australian English, with its closest counterpart in other Englishes being chav in British English and white trash or redneck in American English. Through a semantic analysis of the word, this chapter demonstrates that the social category of “bogans” remains a negative concept, denoting a certain group of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are car-loving, prone to violence and have a certain bogan outlook on life. However, the chapter also shows that in contemporary Australian discourse this originally negative concept can be transformed into a way of self-identification, and as a way of positively embracing Australian nationalism. This analysis is supported by studies in the ethnopragmatics and historical pragmatics of Australian English, which show a general tendency to value the “shared ordinariness” of people and to discursively “heroise” the little man, and the semi-criminal person. Applying the NSM approach to linguistic and cultural analysis, this chapter provides new analyses of the meaning of bogan, and cultural scripts related to the concept. It also opens up the study of the emergence of new cultural keywords, and on the semantic and discursive diversity within Anglo Englishes.
In postcolonial Melanesia, cultural discourses are increasingly organised around creole words, i.e. keywords of Bislama (Vanuatu) and Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea). These words constitute (or represent) important emerging ethnolinguistic worldviews, which are partly borne out of the colonial era, and partly out of postcolonial ethno-rhetoric. This chapter explores the word kastom ‘traditional culture’ in Bislama and pasin bilong tumbuna ‘the ways of the ancestors’ in Tok Pisin. Specific attention is paid to the shift from “negative “ to “positive” semantics, following from the re-evaluation of ancestral practices in postcolonial discourse. Social keywords in postcolonial discourse form a fertile ground for understanding how speakers in Melanesia conceptualise the past as a vital part of the present.
This chapter explicates the word Livet, literally ‘the life’, a cultural keyword of the Danish Golden Age (1800–1850). With evidence from Golden Age Danish and its era-specific webs of words, we explore how “life and living” were construed discursively. We discuss how they relate to contemporary discourses of “the good life” in English and the related Danish calque det gode liv. We argue that era-specific cultural semantics should not be seen as being substantially different from other kinds of culture-specific discourses and that historical varieties such as Golden Age Danish can help us dismantle the hegemonic modern and Anglo take on “narratives of life” which dominate contemporary global discourse.
This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural keyword for Mexican Spanish speakers. This word appears in a variety of discourses, such as, international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the analysis moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.
This chapter studies the Brazilian Portuguese keywords subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’. Despite formal similarities, the English cityscape word suburb conveys a very different concept than subúrbio. In dictionaries, the cultural semantics of the words subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’ is largely missing. This is unfortunate since the semantic richness of these words shed light on Brazilian discourses of urbanism and on a culturally-specific way of categorising people in the urban space. Using evidence from a range of different Brazilian discourses and speakers’ reflections on the two words, I propose a semantic explication for each, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to adequately account for the complex and cultural meaning of the words – seen from an insider’s perspective.
This chapter investigates the Hong Kong Cantonese cultural keyword ‘mong4’.1 Mong is usually translated into English as busy and into Mandarin as máng, but though their meanings overlap, many examples of busy and máng cannot be translated directly into Cantonese using mong. This is because mong has a culturally significant meaning and usage, and is linked to a specific value system supported by Hong Kong discourse. This chapter examines some differences between mong, busy and máng, explores Hong Kong discourses of work and life, and the meta-discourse surrounding mong in the speech community. A Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) explication for mong is proposed in English and Cantonese.
With a point of departure in the Japanese keyword kawaii, roughly, “cute”, this chapter explores contemporary Japanese social discourse. Using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage to explicate kawaii, the two kawaii compounds ita-kawaii and otona-kawaii and the related keywords itai and otona, this study breaks new ground into the understanding of the conceptual basis of kawaii and its elaborations in discourse. As the conceptual configurations of kawaii and related concept are analysed, a view on Japanese socialization and gendered discourse is simultaneously developed, and the value of ‘being kawaii’ is being scrutinized through the stability and innovations of kawaii in discourse.
This chapter investigates the English word nice as a cultural keyword, around which sociality discourses revolve. Focusing on its semantic scope in Australian discourse, the keyword nice has an important story to tell about socially accepted and approved ways of thinking, communicating and behaving. Oftentimes nice has been trivialised, or even ridiculed as an “empty word”, but closer scrutiny reveals that nice has all the characteristics of a cultural keyword. It is frequent and foundational in Australian discourse, and it reflects cultural logics, values and orientations. Also, as is common with cultural keywords, nice lacks translational equivalents, even in closely related languages. A comparison with French gentil demonstrates how nice is distinctive in the way it organises and maintains specific discursive orders.
This chapter studies the word bogan as a cultural keyword of contemporary Australian public discourse. The word bogan is specific to Australian English, with its closest counterpart in other Englishes being chav in British English and white trash or redneck in American English. Through a semantic analysis of the word, this chapter demonstrates that the social category of “bogans” remains a negative concept, denoting a certain group of people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are car-loving, prone to violence and have a certain bogan outlook on life. However, the chapter also shows that in contemporary Australian discourse this originally negative concept can be transformed into a way of self-identification, and as a way of positively embracing Australian nationalism. This analysis is supported by studies in the ethnopragmatics and historical pragmatics of Australian English, which show a general tendency to value the “shared ordinariness” of people and to discursively “heroise” the little man, and the semi-criminal person. Applying the NSM approach to linguistic and cultural analysis, this chapter provides new analyses of the meaning of bogan, and cultural scripts related to the concept. It also opens up the study of the emergence of new cultural keywords, and on the semantic and discursive diversity within Anglo Englishes.
In postcolonial Melanesia, cultural discourses are increasingly organised around creole words, i.e. keywords of Bislama (Vanuatu) and Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea). These words constitute (or represent) important emerging ethnolinguistic worldviews, which are partly borne out of the colonial era, and partly out of postcolonial ethno-rhetoric. This chapter explores the word kastom ‘traditional culture’ in Bislama and pasin bilong tumbuna ‘the ways of the ancestors’ in Tok Pisin. Specific attention is paid to the shift from “negative “ to “positive” semantics, following from the re-evaluation of ancestral practices in postcolonial discourse. Social keywords in postcolonial discourse form a fertile ground for understanding how speakers in Melanesia conceptualise the past as a vital part of the present.
This chapter explicates the word Livet, literally ‘the life’, a cultural keyword of the Danish Golden Age (1800–1850). With evidence from Golden Age Danish and its era-specific webs of words, we explore how “life and living” were construed discursively. We discuss how they relate to contemporary discourses of “the good life” in English and the related Danish calque det gode liv. We argue that era-specific cultural semantics should not be seen as being substantially different from other kinds of culture-specific discourses and that historical varieties such as Golden Age Danish can help us dismantle the hegemonic modern and Anglo take on “narratives of life” which dominate contemporary global discourse.
This chapter presents a semantic and ethnopragmatic analysis of the Mexican Spanish colour word rosa mexicano. This word functions as a symbol of Mexican identity and serves as a cultural keyword for Mexican Spanish speakers. This word appears in a variety of discourses, such as, international and cross-cultural relations, the arts, education and discursive representations of national self-perception. After providing a semantic analysis of the meaning of the word, the analysis moves on to an ethnopragmatic examination, articulating cultural scripts for the visual, identificational and emotional meanings associated with rosa mexicano discourse.
This chapter studies the Brazilian Portuguese keywords subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’. Despite formal similarities, the English cityscape word suburb conveys a very different concept than subúrbio. In dictionaries, the cultural semantics of the words subúrbio ‘suburb’ and suburbanos ‘suburb dwellers’ is largely missing. This is unfortunate since the semantic richness of these words shed light on Brazilian discourses of urbanism and on a culturally-specific way of categorising people in the urban space. Using evidence from a range of different Brazilian discourses and speakers’ reflections on the two words, I propose a semantic explication for each, using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) to adequately account for the complex and cultural meaning of the words – seen from an insider’s perspective.
This chapter investigates the Hong Kong Cantonese cultural keyword ‘mong4’.1 Mong is usually translated into English as busy and into Mandarin as máng, but though their meanings overlap, many examples of busy and máng cannot be translated directly into Cantonese using mong. This is because mong has a culturally significant meaning and usage, and is linked to a specific value system supported by Hong Kong discourse. This chapter examines some differences between mong, busy and máng, explores Hong Kong discourses of work and life, and the meta-discourse surrounding mong in the speech community. A Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) explication for mong is proposed in English and Cantonese.
With a point of departure in the Japanese keyword kawaii, roughly, “cute”, this chapter explores contemporary Japanese social discourse. Using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage to explicate kawaii, the two kawaii compounds ita-kawaii and otona-kawaii and the related keywords itai and otona, this study breaks new ground into the understanding of the conceptual basis of kawaii and its elaborations in discourse. As the conceptual configurations of kawaii and related concept are analysed, a view on Japanese socialization and gendered discourse is simultaneously developed, and the value of ‘being kawaii’ is being scrutinized through the stability and innovations of kawaii in discourse.